Nachtmusik

This is the second chapter of a novel I'm working on, called "Dreams," which I've edited here for a complete story.

When Seth woke into a dream, he was surprised to find that he was surrounded by a thick and unnerving blackness. He couldn't even see his own hands when he tried to move.

He cleared his throat nervously.

Instantly there was a flash of light. It wasn't blinding, but rather was a moderate sort of gray. He opened his mouth and breathed in, ready to speak, but stopped when the breath caused a very dim, but perceptible flash.

Both flashes had appeared in front of him; not in the same place, but in near vicinity to one another.

“Um -” he said. There was a brownish light this time, brighter than the clearing-throat flash.

He thought about this for a second, and then began again, using quotes he'd memorized for various reasons to heighten the sense of experiment.

“We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility...”

There was a series of multicolored flashes. All were warm colors that were close, spectrum-wise, to the original “um.”

He was using a high-pitched, raspy British accent as he recreated the Monty Python skit, which caused the flashes to become whiter and cooler in color.

So, he thought conclusively as the flashes darkened with his “Terminator” quotations, when I talk differently the flashes change in brightness and color. What happens when I sing?

He immediately began to do so, using the first tune he could think of, which turned out to be “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.”

There was an explosion of bright colors of all kinds: purples, blues, greens, oranges...

“Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky...”

The flashes began to last longer, so that soon he was surrounded with brilliant and beautiful colors. He began to sing more complex tunes, starting with some other nursery songs and then moving into some of his own favorite music. All kinds of songs flowed from his lips and added their own hues to the already full spectrum that engulfed him. The more he sang, the more he connected his different tones with different colors and shades, until he felt a zen-like unity with the light he'd made. He continued to sing, but he barely knew what he sang, more focused on the brilliance and perfection of the worlds he'd created.

But then something strange happened.

A new song, barely audible at first, but constantly growing stronger, was being sung. The new song was painful to hear, fraught with dissonance and not at all harmonious with the song which Seth and his creations sung. It began to pollute the colors Seth had made, turning them to ugly, clashing colors that spread the terrible song like a contagious virus. As it spread Seth realized that this was his opponent, and that he had to defeat it. But how?

As the bad song approached, Seth and his creations were singing the second verse of “Shadow of the Day” by Linkin Park. “Pink cards and flowers on your window, your friends all plead for you to stay...”

Seth decided to try to sing harder, louder, but still as harmoniously, to try and combat this color disease.

“Sometimes beginnings aren't so simple, sometimes 'goodbye''s the only way...”

The stronger his voice grew, the stronger the colors that had not been converted became, and the less the bad colors and the bad song spread. Some of the bad flashes were suddenly returned to their original brilliance and color, and others were fading out altogether.

“And the sun will set for you, the sun will set for you...”

Was it just his imagination, or was the volume of the bad song reducing? Elated by this thought, Seth added even more power and strength to his song.

“And the shadow of the day will embrace the world in gray, and the sun will set for you.”

As he actively resisted the spread of evil, the colors that he'd created began to join in his song, adding their own harmonies and sometimes even making the other sounds of the song to support him. Soon his melody had been joined, not just by the original instruments and tunes, but with thousands of branching harmonies that layered and layered around the song until the human mind could not comprehend them all. As he made a final repetition of the chorus, however, Seth's part rang out clear and powerful, spearheading the final attack on the color disease.

“And the sun will set for you, the sun will set for you...”

The bad song and colors had almost completely disappeared. Even as Seth sang the last lines he felt a new blackness, one which he realized would return him to consciousness, open behind him as he finished off the last vestiges of evil.

“And the shadow of the day will embrace the world in gray, and the sun will set for you.”

He barely had time to whisper that final line as he sank into reality.

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